25
MIA
The morning comesto steal away our night in Paris like a lousy thief. I wish I’d booked an extra night. I wish we could stay in this little bubble of ours for just another 24 hours. But we both have too many commitments calling us back to London, so we content ourselves with breakfast in bed before our train back.
Dom regards me with a thoughtful frown as I drink my coffee, and I raise an eyebrow.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
“Something Giselle said last night,” he replies, rubbing his chin. “It got me thinking. And then the way you reacted when I said I was proud… it probably seems stupid to say in light of, well, everything, but Archie wasn’t supportive of your career, was he?”
I put my cup down on its saucer with a sigh. “Bit of an understatement. He liked the idea of being married to a model because he thought that it meant just being married to someone pretty. He didn’t understand everything that came with it. The shows and the shoots and all the travelling. He pretended to be patient for a year or so, then my career kind of exploded and he’d had a gut full of it.”
“Fool,” Dom mutters, shaking his head.
“Was he always like that?” I lift a shoulder when Dom looks at me. “Self-centred, arrogant?”
“No, he was, I don’t know, a fun kid to be around.” Dom frowns at the bed, tracing his fingertip along the folds in the sheets. “His mother always indulged him, and I probably did too, in my own way. The stereotypical Only Child who comes from money. Pathetic, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think being an only child can make you turn out like Archie.”
“I know he blames me for a lot of it, says I wasn’t there when he was little.” Dom gazes out the window at the grey morning. “I was young when he was born, too young probably. Football was everything, and I was an idiot about it all. ‘I’ll be involved when he’s older’, that’s what I told myself. I don’t know. I do know that there was a big change in him when he started in the league, the fame went to his head and I think…” Dom trails off, and gives me a smile. “This isn’t really how we should be spending our last hours in Paris, is it?”
I giggle and snuggle down into the fluffy pillows. “No, we could probably do something much more fun instead.” I glance over at the clock. “But we don’t have that much time, so you’ll have to be on your game, Mr Graves.”
Dom crawls over me, taking the cup from my hands and putting it on the night stand. “Challenge accepted.”
And he does rise to that challenge, eating me as voraciously as ever until I’m screaming, before he bends me over the bed and fucks me until we’re both hot and dripping with sweat. Instead of satiating me, it just makes me even more sad that we can’t stay longer.
When we’re both dressed and Dom casts one last glance across the room to make sure we have everything, I can’t help but feel a little morose. There’s a knock on the door, announcingthe arrival of the porter, and I press one last warm kiss to Dom’s lips before we’re forced back out under watching eyes.
He notches his fingers under my chin and gives me a smile.
“I had a great time,” he murmurs, and kisses the tip of my nose.
We step apart demurely, and Dom opens the door. The porter bustles in, collecting up our bags and rushing them out on the trolley. The elevator takes us down to the busy lobby, and Dominic quickly takes care of our check-out. I cast a quick glance at my phone, seeing hundreds of notifications and several missed calls from Charlotte. I didn’t expect everyone to be this excited about my perfume launch, but it’s sweet that they are. I don’t let my phone distract me for too long though, because Dom is walking back towards me and smiling at me, and I don’t want to lose any time with him before we get back to London.
The drive back to the station is over too quickly, and we still have a little bit of time before we need to board. We order a coffee at a small cafe inside the station, and Dom’s phone starts to ping wildly. He yanks it out of his pocket with a groan.
“Bloody thing has been going off since we got up,” he mutters, putting it on silent and shoving it back in the pocket of his coat. “I can deal with all that when we get back to London.”
We amble down to the platform, chancing a quick kiss in an alcove where we’re sure no one can see us, which is incredibly stupid and risky, but I can’t help myself. And neither, it seems, can Dom.
As the train starts its journey out of Paris, Dom leans on the table between us and smiles at me.
“So, what’s this coming week looking like for you?”
I shrug, taking a last sip of coffee. “I have a meeting with my PA this evening, a shoot tomorrow morning, and then I’m pretty much free. How about you?”
“Training, as usual, and it’s the anniversary of my mum’s death on Monday. I always take Dad out for it."
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
Dom shakes his head and smiles gently. “It’s alright. We go to Mum’s grave, and then we go have a Devonshire Tea at her favourite place. Became a sort of tradition.”
I nod, feeling stupid and like I should say something more profound thanI’m sorry, but even with both my parents dead, I never know what to say to someone else about theirs. Maybe there isn’t anything to say.
“Maybe,” Dom says slowly, gazing out the window. “We could have dinner on Monday night. Just something casual in a nice little place.”
